9 faces to watch in Portugal’s election

LISBON — The issues may not be sexy, but the candidates for prime minister of Portugal are turning heads here.

On October 4, the Portuguese cast their ballots among 16 parties whose leaders include Europe’s “hottest” prime minister, a former avant-guard theater actress and a pregnant psychologist with a tendency for appearing naked in magazines.

Polls predict a close race but most put the governing center-right coalition ahead with around 38 percent of the vote, while the Socialists are expected to garner 33 percent, according to a survey late last week by Intercampus for the daily Público newspaper, TVI television and TSF radio.

If the polls are right, neither side is expected to win an outright majority.

That is raising fears of a weak government unable to push through reforms need to bolster the economy that has only recently begun to recover from years of recession.

Even more scary for international creditors: the Socialists could be tempted to share power with smaller parties further to the left who advocate rebellion from economic mores of the European Union.

Here are the candidates putting some pep into Portugal’s vote:

Pedro Passos Coelho

Pedro Passos Coelho. PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP/Getty

Pedro Passos Coelho has been Portugal’s prime minister since 2011. He is Europe’s hottest (as in looking) elected leader, according to hottestheadsofstate.com.

The smooth-talking head of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) — which is center-right despite the name — was once married to a singer from a girl’s band dubbed Portugal’s answer to the Spice Girls.

A 51-year-old economist, Passos Coelho is reportedly a tuneful crooner himself who likes to serenade house guests with renditions of Lisbon’s bluesy fado music.

His second wife is a physiotherapist from the West African nation of Guinea Bissau, currently battling cancer.

Passos Coelho has a cautious, low-key approach to politics. He’s kept the country on an austerity course, winning plaudits from Brussels for bringing down budget deficits and reforms that have led the country into modest growth after a long recession. He is loathed by the left for public spending cuts, tax hikes and privatizations.

Still, polls give him a chance of becoming the second leader of a bailed out euro-zone country to secure re-election, following Greece’s Alexis Tsipras last week.

António Costa

António Costa. EPA

Hoping to unseat him is Socialist Party (PS) leader António Costa.

The two men have contrasting styles. Costa is a bullish, in-your-face politician who thrives on the stump, sleeves rolled up, thumping the tub.

His headstrong approach can lead him into trouble: He recently fired off an insulting and vaguely threatening late-night text to a critical journalist.

Costa easily won the only head-to-head TV debate with a number-crunching Passos Coelho, but the party’s poll rating has been slipping as the election approaches.

If Costa can turn the ratings around, the 54-year-old lawyer could be considered Europe’s first prime minister of color — his father was a writer from India. Yet race is not a factor in the campaign and is rarely mentioned in the media.

Costa is an experienced administrator, serving as justice minister and for seven years as a popular mayor of Lisbon.

Since taking the party leadership last year, he’s shifted the Socialists to the left, but Costa is firmly rooted in Europe’s center-left mainstream — more likely to ally with French President François Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi than launch a solo act à la Tsipras.

Traditional PS moderation would be tested, however, if Costa teams up with the far left to secure a parliamentary majority.

Catarina Martins and Mariana Mortágua

Catarina Martins. EPA

Among his options would be a deal with the Left Bloc (BE), a radical party in the mold of Syriza and Spain’s Podemos.

The party’s run by a six-member committee rather than a single leader, but 41-year-old actress Catarina Martins serves as spokesperson. She’s had a good campaign pushing polls ratings up to 8 percent — perhaps enough to give it a kingmaker role.

Martins shares the limelight with 29-year-old lawmaker Mariana Mortágua who rose to prominence by making Portugal’s financial elite squirm under her questioning during a parliamentary inquiry into last year’s collapse of the Espírito Santo banking empire. Mortágua has revolutionary pedigree; her father was a bank-robbing, hijacking opponent of Portugal’s dictatorship in the 1960s.

Behind their jeans-and-sneakers image, Martins and Mortágua are tough political operators with a mission to overturn the economic order.

The Bloc has youthful appeal, but it’s been weakened by high-profile splits and its association with Syriza’s flirtation with Grexit this summer.

Jerónimo de Sousa

The other significant player on the left is Jerónimo de Sousa, general secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP).

At 68, he’s the oldest lead candidate and his class-struggle rhetoric harks back to a bygone age.

Still, de Sousa knows what he’s talking about when he denounces poverty in a country where the minimum wage is just €505 a month. Like many from poor families during Portugal’s dark days of dictatorship he toiled as a child laborer, starting in a steel mill at 14.

With piercing eyes and craggy features, de Sousa personifies Portugal’s determinedly old school Communists, a party that proudly flies the hammer-and-sickle flag and advocates nationalization of much of the economy.

The PCP commands wide respect even from opponents thanks to its political consistency and its lead role resisting Portugal’s 48-year dictatorship, which fell in 1974.

Still it’s been unable to expand support beyond a loyal core. Running in a coalition with the Green party, which they long ago co-opted, the Communists are polling below 10 percent and are struggling to keep third place.

Paulo Portas

The 52-year-old bachelor heads the conservative Social and Democratic Center-Popular Party (CDS-PP) and is Portugal’s longest-serving party leader.

Portas has been dogged for years by murky rumors linking his name to a series of scandals. The most notable involves dodgy dealings during the navy’s purchase of German submarines when he was defense minister in 2004. But the dirt has never stuck.

In 2013, Portas was widely ridiculed when he announced his “irrevocable” decision to resign from the government over economic differences, only to change his mind three days later. A satirical song entailed “The irrevocable submarine,” was a modest hit last year for pop singer Rogério Charraz.

Portas’ teflon qualities are boosted by consummate political skills. The urbane former newspaper director is a master of the TV soundbite, but also has a knack for turning on the common touch. He works tirelessly hugging, kissing and charming his way through markets and rural fairs up and down the country.

José Sócrates

José Sócrates. GEORGES GOBET/AFP/Getty

José Sócrates is not a candidate in the election, but he’s the politician everybody in Portugal is talking about.

The former prime minister was released this month after spending nine months behind bars while investigators probed tax fraud, corruption and money-laundering allegations. He remains under house arrest.

Voted out of power in 2011, the one-time-Socialist leader denies everything and claims he’s the victim of a political conspiracy. His release introduces a wild card into the election campaign.

The PS has been divided between diehard supporters who proclaim his innocence and flocked to visit him in jail, and those embarrassed by his high-flying, pre-jail lifestyle and uneasy over the graft allegations.

Sócrates’ presence during the TV debate between Costa and Passos Coelho was such that several Lisbon twitterites got drunk after knocking back shots every time his name was mentioned.

During his time in power, Sócrates was another regular on international “hottest politician” lists. His fans were relieved that the 58-year-old’s silver fox looks that once drew comparisons with George Clooney appeared unblemished by his months of incarceration.

Joana Amaral Dias

Joana Amaral Dias, is a psychologist, TV personality and former lawmaker, who split from the Left Bloc to form her own party called Act.

Joana Amaral Dias

It’s one of a dozen parties struggling to get more than 1 percent of the vote, but despite the lack of voter interest she’s generated high-profile media coverage by displaying her heavily pregnant body naked in a couple of glossy magazine shoots.

Elsewhere on the fringe is another Left Bloc offshoot with the snappy name of Free-Time to Move Forward; a Maoist faction who launched its campaign with the slogan “Death to the Traitors,” and a pensioners’ party running under the acronym PURP. There’s a group demanding equal rights for animals and another advocating the restoration of the monarchy which fell in 1910.

Aníbal Cavaco Silva

Cavaco Silva. EPA

If the election fails to produce a clear winner, Portugal’s President Aníbal Cavaco Silva will be thrown into the spotlight.

The 76-year-old head of state, whose role is usually ceremonial, will have to invite one of the candidates to form a government.

Cavaco Silva is a former leader of the PSD, but has annoyed Passos Coelho’s government with his habit of sending controversial laws to the Constitutional Court, where most were rejected.

His role could be further complicated by quirks in the voting system which mean the party with the most votes, may not necessarily win most seats.

Little wonder then, that Cavaco Silva has been calling on voters to choose a stable majority government.

Nuno

“once married to a singer from a girl’s band dubbed Portugal’s answer to the Spice Girls.”

How can a girls’s band from the 80’s be an answer from one of the 90’s?

Posted on 9/28/15 | 3:21 PM CET

JMCerdeira

You forgot Marinho e Pinto, who can (maybe) elect one or two mp’s through his newly formed Democratic and Republican Party. Look it up.

Posted on 9/29/15 | 1:55 AM CET

miguelito

Costa’s father was born in Mozambique to a Goese father and a French mother, so Costa is 25% Goese if you want and 25% French.

Posted on 9/29/15 | 6:26 PM CET

João

So, when you say that the PCP is having a hard time holding to the third place, you are ignoring the fact that they are expected to have the best turn-out of the last 30 years, are continuously rising in the polls and and will probably more 2.5-5% than 2011. How is that maintaining a faithful group and struggling with the Left Bloc who is polled 5% below them.

Posted on 9/29/15 | 9:04 PM CET

Rui Silva

There is an error in the article. It is not true when it says “Costa easily won the only head-to-head TV debate with a number-crunching Passos Coelho”. There was another debate, in witch Passos Coelho was the winner and Costa struggle to explain his program. This debate was live on radio in the morning and broadcasted in Tv latter that day.

Posted on 9/30/15 | 12:59 PM CET

david paulo moraes

give the chance to antonio costa the goan origin and see the difference in portugal ///viva portugal….

Posted on 10/5/15 | 5:42 PM CET

Fernando Pessoa

“a girl’s band dubbed Portugal’s answer to the Spice Girls”.
The girl’s band name was Doce (Sweet) and it was hardly an answer to Spice Girls, since Doce banded together in 1980, 14 years before the Spice Girls. Unless Doce’s producer is a psychic…